It’s no secret that seeing stories by “The Gray Lady” of journalism makes some South Texas readers see red.
“All your stories are from the New York Times,” was Guinn Unger’s analysis of the Express-News coverage of the financial crisis roiling the country. “I don’t expect the Express-News to do its own stories, but aren’t there any other wire services covering this story?”
A handful are capable: the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press and Bloomberg.com, to name a few.
Meanwhile, headlines on New York Times stories, written by Express-News editors, also drew wrath from the South Texas reading public.
Bob Peterson observed that a Thursday Page 1 headline, “McCain’s call to postpone debate ruled out by Obama,” “twisted” the story. “The paper’s (pro-Obama) slant is way too obvious,” he said.
Beverly Smith drew a bead on a Sept. 18 headline, “FEAR IS FEEDING FEAR,” with: “The media are driving that fear because they don’t want John McCain to be president.”
And Larry Moss of Kerrville was one of several who said another Page 1 banner, “SENATE REJECTS BUSH PLAN,” on Wednesday, made an editorial comment about President Bush’s bailout plan. As Moss said in an e-mail, “… not every facet of the plan as proposed was rejected or even questioned.”
Moss said there was no vote on the plan, thus no rejection. True, but senators on both sides of the aisle scorned it.
I largely disagree with the critics of the Times’ reporting and E-N headline writers. Bush himself said on TV last week that his plan was intended to stem a “financial panic,” and his speech confirmed what the New York Times had been reporting for the past two weeks.
These ARE truly worrisome times in the life of our nation.
It is becoming clearer as this campaign enters the stretch run that Republicans are making the “mainstream media” the enemy. That’s insulting to us and risky for them.
As I’ve said many times, we make mistakes, but we admit them. There aren’t many businesses, including politics, that admit their mistakes publicly, and offer critics space, as I have above and as the commentary pages do, to fire away at us.
That said, because I think Guinn Unger raised a legitimate question (why so much NY Times copy in the E-N?), I posed the question to the news editor here, Gary Newsom, business editor Brad Lehman and Brett Thacker, the paper’s managing editor.
Newsom, who scans the wires for the top stories of the day, said the Times has done the best job covering the financial flux, some days filing six or seven reports on the crisis.
Meanwhile, he said, the other top wire services haven’t matched the Times’ output and timeliness, and the Wall Street Journal doesn’t file daily stories on its wire.
Thacker and Lehman, who also keep tabs on the wires, agreed with Newsom’s assessment. Thacker added:
“This is the silly season, with partisanship at a fever pitch that can blind normally reasonable people… The middle ground of reason is becoming like those barrier islands off the coast of Louisiana vanishing with each passing hurricane.”
Metaphorically wounded by at least 200 conservative critics in recent weeks, I was about to put this piece to bed with nary a plaudit from the other side when dear Ann Weibel called:
“You all are telling it like it is,” she said. “The economy is worrying everyone to death. The Senate did reject Bush. He should not have a blank check. He is not God.”
On that, I think we can all agree.
